Brian's Drawings

Secret of Mana Inks

2009-06-25T20:31:00.001-07:00

Just want to start off by directing you to this interview with my friend Matt Loux about his comic Salt Water Taffy. It's a great interview, and he mentions me, Brian, and the Dan the Wolf comics I've been doing (have you gone to the website and seen them yet?), which was super cool of him. I feel so professional, being mentioned in an interview!

Anyways, here's the Secret of Mana pic I showed last week, all inked and done. It's been up on my DeviantArt and my Flickr for a few days now, and gotten embarrassingly few views... I guess the only way to get popular on DA is to draw titties and Sonic the Hedgehog fanart. But I'll save that bitching for another time. Here's the picture, enjoy!

I'm back, baby!

2009-06-16T14:59:00.000-07:00

Y'know, I wasn't even going to do the whole blogging thing anymore... between MySpace / Facebook / Twitter / Deviantart, I was thinking I was letting the world know enough of what I was up to. But then I thought... blog. Since it's been a while since I've written anything, I'll fill you all in on what I've been up to, but first, drop what you're doing and click on this...

That's the official website for my friend Matt's comic Salt Water Taffy, and on it you'll find the first in a series of comics drawn by me, Brian! Pretty cool stuff. And if you haven't read Salt Water Taffy, you totally should, it's tons of fun!

Anyways, now, about me. Over the last 6 months I've built a new computer, taken up Karate, and broke up with my girlfriend of 6 years for reasons I won't go into here. Which means I've also moved (I'm still kinda... 'between' homes...) and left behind my two BEST BUDDIES. Which sucks, but what can you do? This doesn't mean that I've been completely idle art-wise, on the contrary, I've been pretty productive lately (Salt Water Taffy comics!).

Here's my most recent work... it's some pencils based on the cover art of Secret of Mana. I had the idea to do this in my head for a while now, and I just really wanted to practice drawing some trees and stuff. I'll post more stuff that I've done lately over the next week or two. Let me know what you think!

MySims!!

2009-01-25T13:21:00.000-08:00

Welp, I'm back. Been quite a while since I drew anything, let alone POSTED anything. I spent this last weekend sick as a dog, on the couch with my shiny new Robotech box set I got for Christmas, as well as a pile of other crap I bought with birthday money / Christmas gift cards etc... a new scanner (a Cannon one that works excellent, is half the size of my old one, and who's install software does not say "Compatible with Windows 95/98"), and one of THESE:

That's right, I got a Wacom. Just the tiny Bamboo one. Because Pandas like bamboo. But also because the next better Wacom was a 200 dollar Intuos... and I needed that extra cash to replace my poor, broken DS. Anyways, I figured a little fanart would be just the thing to see if I could still draw after all this time, and to test out all my new gear, and I had also just picked up MySims finally (20 bucks for PC!), which it turns out is EXCELLENT. It's like if Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon had a baby! You might also notice my Avatar is currently my MySims guy. Wish I had that coat in real life. Anyways, I decided to draw one of the townsfolk from my MySims town, this girl who owns an ice cream shop and dresses like a bee. Comments are welcome and encouraged, but remember: this is like, the first thing I've drawn in like A YEAR, and it's also the first time I've attempted doing Wacom colors, so, y'know. Be nice.

Helicopter Drills, page 2

2008-04-13T16:08:00.000-07:00

Here's page 2 of the Coast Guard Helicopter Drills comic. This has actually been sitting on my shelf, ninety percent done, for like 2 weeks, and I only just finished it now. I won't bore you with the reasons behind it. Anyways, I hope you love it!

Harvest Moon Colors

2008-03-04T18:10:00.000-08:00

Here it is, all finished! I did these colors with my shiny new set of Prismacolor Markers I got for Christmas, and it's my first attempt EVER at Marker Colors, so let me know what you think! Be kind, tho, this IS my first try...

I Heart Harvest Moon

2008-02-24T12:02:00.001-08:00

I originally wasn't going to share this until after it had been inked, but I posted it on Deviantart and got a pretty positive reaction, so what the hell. It's a Harvest Moon picture I banged out last night! I hope you love it.

Also, on a side note, if you like puzzle games, and don't mind looking at the clock and suddenly realising that it's 2 in the morning (and your alarm is set to 5 am for work), I highly reccomend Picross for the DS. You can try it out here, there's tons of puzzles you can play for free. Anyways, here's the drawing:

Helicopter Drills, Page 1

2008-02-11T18:49:00.000-08:00

Here's a little something I drew about my illustrious Coast Guard career! Page two to follow.

Here I Come, To Save the Day!

2007-12-12T19:35:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, I'm back with more art. Just doing some more practice with the Photoshop Pen tool and some colors, I came up with this over the last couple days. If I have to tell you who this character is, it's going to make me feel totally old... anyways, like the last drawing, this was done totally on Photoshop, with the exception of the initial sketch done in pencil. Definately let me know what you think!

Trying New Things

2007-12-08T12:31:00.001-08:00

Hey, anyone remember forever ago when I posted this drawing?

I drew this in ballpoint pen during a lunch break a few years ago while I was still working at Target. Well, I just found it floating around my hard drive, and I always kinda liked it, so I went ahead and 'inked' it in Photoshop, using just the pen tool. This was the first time I ever tried doing digital inking, (something I thought you'd need a Wacom tablet to do well) and I'm really pretty pleased with how it came out, especially since it was my first attempt at something like this! Let me know what you think.

Hey, c'mon! C'mon!

2007-11-23T20:34:00.000-08:00

In honor of the release of the release of King of Fighters XI on Playstation 2, I drew this bitching picture of Terry Bogard. For some insane reason, Team Fatal Fury will NOT be appearing in KoF XI!! Or at least, not Andy and Joe... the Fatal Fury team this year is the Mark of the Wolves version of Terry, Kim Kap Hwan, and Duck King. DUCK KING!? Who the hell would rather be Duck King than Andy Bogard!? Anyways, I guess KoF isn't so popular in America anymore, so I'm having a super hard time finding a store that stocks it.

Also, just in case anyone cares... Thanksgiving day. 3 meals in 5 hours. And I had seconds and multiple desserts at all three meals. I am also the King of Food! Or King of Fat. You decide.

More Harvest Moon

2007-10-28T09:35:00.000-07:00

All right, here's the full thing of the one-page Harvest Moon comic I did. I'll add in the dialog when I add the color, which could take a bit, because like I said, I'm cracking out the paints on this one. And let me assure you all, I can NOT paint. In the meantime, you can make up your own dialog if you like... for real comedy, I'd suggest you imagine them talking about politics or religion!

If I had the chance (and if someone would be willing to pay me to do it), I'd love to do a full length Harvest Moon graphic novel... the game is kinda 'niche', tho, so I'm not sure how well something like that might sell...

Harvest Moon

2007-10-23T19:09:00.000-07:00

Here's something I've been working on... a couple panels from a one page comic based on the video game Harvest Moon. I'm experimenting a little with the stack of art supplies I've got in my drawers... this is drawn on Watercolor Paper instead of my usual Smooth Bristol, and I had a hell of a time getting smooth lines on there. If you look close, you can probably see some spots where I over-corrected. And if you're wondering why it's drawn on Watercolor Paper, well... I'm pretty much planning on ruining it with the crusty old tubes of Watercolors I found in my closet. Don't worry, tho, I'll post the full black and white version before I do that.

I love Harvest Moon. Seriously. I BEAT SOMEONE UP ONCE for making fun of Harvest Moon. Anyways, enjoy, and definately tell me what you think!

The Next Step

2007-10-08T19:25:00.000-07:00

Okay everyone, here's the Cannonball and Sunspot picture again, this time with some colors added in.

Now, all you artists out there, here's where I need some honest opinions, because color is definately not something I've ever done much of. How's this look? Does it need more, or does it look finished? I've tried going in and doing some shading, but I just CAN'T draw with a mouse, and my shadows end up looking all crummy. Anyone got any techniques for this that they're willing to share? I've tried Lassoing the area I want to shade / highlight, but the Polygon Lasso comes out too jagged and the regular Lasso gives me the same problem as the paintbrush... just too tough to draw with the mouse. Anyways, what do you all think?

Some new Inks

2007-10-06T21:01:00.000-07:00

Hey, anyone remember these pencils I did like forever ago?

In case you couldn't tell, it's Cannonball and Sunspot from X-Force / X-Men / The New Mutants / or whatever team they're on in current Marvel continuity. Here's the inked version:

Yeah, I redrew their legs... so, tell me what you think!

Overheard at Work 2

2007-09-23T18:15:00.000-07:00

Once again, totally not made up, I swear to God...

Now, I don't know much about gangs or gangsters, but I'm pretty sure there's not a lot of gang activity going on in Southeastern Connecticut. I confirmed this by checking out the websites of my local newpapers and doing searches for 'gang activity', 'Crip', etcetera, and came up with zero results. This kid talked all the time about being a Crip, and how he did drive-by shootings in NYC, and all the Bloods and cops he fought in Taftville, Connecticut. Like I said, I don't know much about gangs, but... if a tubby white kid listening to today's hottest Country music was walking around in L.A. saying he was a Crip, I'm pretty sure someone would kick his ass.

Overheard at Work

2007-09-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

I swear, you can't make this shit up...

He sings! He drums on the table, all day long, nonstop! He talks at great length about things he's completely ignorant about! I'm sure you all work with someone like this. I would like to stress, once again, that I did NOT make this up, someone I work with actually said this.
This was a pretty lazy comic for me... I drew it in one evening, inked it while completely tanked (can you tell?), and did a lot of copying and pasting in Photoshop so I wouldn't have to redraw the same things four times. Still, I guess it came out okay in the end. So what do you think?

Found in the trunk of the Eclipse...

2007-07-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

Jeez, I guess I should clean out my cars more often...

Sam and Max Hit the Road for PC
School notebooks (I haven't attended college in like 3 years)
George Foreman Grill
Portable DVD Player
My missing copy of Gorrilaz / G-Sides (in the Strong Bad Sings case)
My missing copy of Specials / Today's Specials (in Gorrilaz / Demon Days case)
Plastic Beach Shovel (with sand still in it)
Foam Disc Gun
Pair of Suspenders
Two Commodore 64 cartidges... Pac Man and Magic Desk 1
Brand new box of 2 Pencils
Pencil Sharpener
Nintendo AC Adaptor
Silver Gamecube Controller
Old style Game Boy Advance with Gamecube link cable
Grocery paperwork from Wal Mart
Two Homestar Runner shirts
Pietasters 'More Beer' shirt
Wal Mart Vest
Complete set of Target training materials, Rapid Training Series, folders, and notebooks
Red Target polo shirt
Complete US Coast Guard Dress Uniform, with windbreaker, medals, and rank insignia attached

Amazing stuff.

Monster Party

2007-06-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

Two comics in less than one week! Actually, this one is a little older. I drew this in like February or something for an anthology published by Life Meter Comics. Well, they just put up a list of what was going to be in the book, and my comic was not on that list. So I guess it's okay for me to post it here now, then. Their deal is they do comics based on video games, and I did this comic based on NES classic Monster Party. I guess I should have gone with something a little more mainstream, because they told me they never heard of this game. Oh well. Here's the comic anyways, I hope you love it.

A Cold Day in Hell

2007-06-14T16:36:00.000-07:00

I just realized it's been like a billion years, so here's a comic!

I doodled this on my lunch break at work. As you can see, my colors still need work, but I played around with this one a little... messing with the Contrast and Brightness and stuff so it didn't look so garish.

As an added bonus, here's some pencils I've been working on for a much larger and more ambitious project!

Drawing all those books on the shelf was pretty tedious. I'll clean them up a bit in the inking phase.

Yeah, I pretty much directly ripped off the Dragon Ball Z logo for the Death Wish Comics logo.

For those of you who don't go to my MySpace...

2007-03-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

I just drew up these banners to replace the text links leading to my blogs on my MySpace profile. I tried to style them after Final Fantasy text windows. Just thought I'd share, let me know what you think!

Also, in case you didn't notice, I doodled myself a new Avatar, too. The profile view I did looks a little weird... like his nose is broken and his glasses are shoved into his face! Oh well, that's what practice is for.

"Bat! Batter!" "Anything is okay!"

2007-03-02T20:14:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, here's a sneak preview of something I've been working on lately. I don't want to show the whole thing, because I'm going to try and get it published in a comics anthology. If they like it and it gets printed, I'll let you know where to buy a copy! Enjoy!

Here's another panel... can anyone guess what classic Nintendo game this is based on?

My house (in the middle of the street)

2007-02-18T20:02:00.000-08:00

Hey, who wants to live in my apartment, Sims 2 style!?
I even fully furnished it with all my stuff, including some things I don't own... like a dishwasher. And windows.
Apparently, it would cost a Sim $31,567 to live my sweet, single bedroom lifestyle.

Help Computer

2006-11-18T11:28:00.000-08:00

I always find it a little hard to believe when my computer bogs down and freezes up when I'm trying to do something... I mean, I slapped this thing together to run Doom 3, which is does pretty well, so when I'm sending an error report off to Microsoft because Photoshop froze up when I'm trying to convert a picture from a bitmap to a grayscale, well, it just leaves me a little puzzled (as I'm typing this post, Photoshop has frozen and had to be restarted... 4 times so far). Kinda like when my Playstation 2 doesn't run Mr. Driller.

Anyways, here's a couple pages I just inked the other day... I wasn't able to find a brush I liked at the store, and since I'd been having a lot of trouble with brushes lately, I just went ahead and inked with a brush pen. I think it came out okay, except for the straight lines and stuff in the background (the parallel lines on the door came out particulary mushy)... I may try using a pen for stuff like that and seeing how it comes out. I posted the pencils for the first page a couple posts back, so you can compare and see which is better (I almost always think the pencils look better than the inks). You may also notice that the edges are slightly cut off, too... I need a new scanner, I think... one that's like a centimeter bigger.

This is something else I did this past week. It still needs a bit more pencil work, and I'm definately going to wait until I have a good brush before I touch this one with any ink. It's Cannonball and Sunspot from X-Force, redesigned with more of a modern, 'street' kind of X-Fashion sense. Inks and colors coming soon on all of todays drawings!

Jesus is the Ultimate Gamer

2006-10-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

Here's my latest comic! It's only three panels, smaller than what I'd been doing, but it was still fun to do and it was some good practice. I spent a whole afternoon and evening coloring this thing, and I somehow managed to save over my high-res 1200 dpi original with this 150 dpi copy... God dammit! Oh well, it's not like it was my masterpiece or anything. I still like to have the high res originals hanging around on my hard drive in case I want to print it out or something. Anyway, I hope you all love it!

Keeping Busy!!

2006-10-09T15:08:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't had a finished comic posted in a while, but I swear I've been keeping busy! To prove it, here's some sketches I've been working on lately. This first one is a panel I did for a comic that's still a 'work in progress'... it really needs to be redrawn, though. The two characters on the left are supposed to be reacting to the drunk cartoon Brian draped over the couch, and they're not even looking at him... also, I drew everything too big... there was supposed to be room for another character standing to the far right...
... like in the rough draft I drew here. In fact, he's supposed to be speaking the comic's punchline, so without him standing there, it kind of defeats the purpose.
I'm choosing to blame how this came out on the fact that I'm drawing on smaller pages now... I got a pad of bristol boards to draw on instead of the Blue Line Pro Comic Boards that I had been using, since I figured they were smaller and would fit in my scanner. No such luck... it turns out the pages are about 1/2 a centimeter bigger than my scanner's surface. Oh well. This next one is a page I did based off some thumbnails I did a couple months ago. I like how it came out, but it's pretty reminiscent of a scene from Scott Pilgrim volume 2...
Once the word bubbles are in and the next page is added to it, it doesn't seem QUITE so similar, but I still can't shake the feeling that I'm a dirty copycat. And here's a bonus drawing... a picture of cartoon me dancing it up that I drew on lined paper on break at work. I can't remember the last time I danced to a song... or went to a show, for that matter.

Locked Out

2006-09-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

So I spent like three and a half hours locked out of my apartment last night. It was not cool. My key wasn't opening the lock, so I just camped out hoping that someone else would come home eventually and open up for me (I was thinking that maybe it could just be my key). No such luck... when the next tennant showed up, her key didn't work either. Turns out the lock was broken... it was turning, but the dead-bolt wasn't moving. By about 10:30, Every person who lived in the house was home, locked out, waiting on the porch. The landlord (and anyone else who could have come and unlocked the front door) had his cell phone turned off, so not knowing what else to do, someone called the police. The officer didn't show up until after midnight, and since we still couldn't get a hold of the landlord, I loaned the officer my tire iron out of the trunk of my car, we climbed the fire escape, found an unlocked window, and pried it open.

The worst part of all this is sitting in the cold for all that time made me sick again. Oh well. At least I finally got to meet all my neighbors.

Downhill Battle: Akina Speed Stars vs. J-City Rollers!

2006-09-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

Finally, here's my latest comic! I had a hell of a time getting this thing online for some reason. It wasn't showing up at all on Livejournal, and on Blogspot the colors were coming out backwards... all the reds were blue and vice versa. Anyway, enjoy please!
Yeah, so I'm getting rid of my car. I've had some bad luck with money over the last year or so, and when that thing breaks, it costs an arm and a leg and a thousand dollars to get it going again. Tires alone are like 800 bucks! No thanks. Next time I get an awesome car, I'm going to have to be sure I can afford it. Oh well, at least I can say that I've owned a red convertible at one point in my life.

The characters in the last panel are from a comic I've been reading for a while called Initial D, about a kid who drives a Trueno AE86 (I understand it's pretty much an 80's rear wheel drive Toyota Corolla, correct me if I'm wrong) and beats the crap out of RX-7s, Skyline GT-Rs, and Lancer Evos in races. The reason he can beat them in such an underpowered car is because they race downhill on winding mountain roads, where it's more important to be a skilled driver than to have a powerful car. So it's pretty much just an in-joke to anyone who's ever read Initial D before. It's a pretty good read if you've got 10 bucks per volume burning a hole in your pocket.

Also, here's a bonus drawing... just something I doodled in ballpoint pen on lunchbreak at work. It's me floating in outer space. I've been in a weird kind of mood lately.

Jewett City Gangstas

2006-08-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. Sorry there's been no new drawings lately, I just haven't done anything worth posting... just loose sketches and things lately. Actually, I'm working on a big project which is just in the 'rough draft' stage so far, but once it's done I'm hoping it will be something I can shop around and get published. Again, it's in a very early stage, so don't expect to see anything on it anytime soon. Anyway, so I was walking around my hometown of Jewett City, Connecticut... taking a bunch of photos for reference for this project I'm working on. I used to live in an apartment right up the road from this house... if you see it in person, it just looks like it's falling apart...
There's an air conditioner in the window, so someone MUST live there. Pretty suprising, since it looks like it should get knocked down.
So after I take these photos, this kid who was sitting across the street asks me why I'm taking pictures of the house. My response was just, "Why not?" And then he got wicked pissed. He starts yelling, "That's my father's house, you can't just go around taking pictures of it!!" to which I once again responded, "Why not?" which, of course, just made him more angry. Eventually, he just gave up with a "Whatever, man, you do what you gotta do..." so I thanked him for giving me permission to take photos of the neighborhood.
Now, I'm pretty sure it's not against the law to take pictures of stuff... it's just crazy to me that someone would get that angry over something like that. This kid almost seemed ready to fight me, and I was twice his size! Just over me taking a photo of his house! People are crazy. And Jewett City kids are all tough guys. Hopefully, I'll have some drawings ready soon!

Commodore 64: The Ultimate Video Game System!?

2006-07-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

Here's my latest comic, this time, IN FULL COLOR! This one is also based on something that actually happened to me, very recently, but I'll get to that in a sec. I hope you like it!
So a friend of mine had just bought Guitar Hero, and when we brought it to my house and tried to play it in my Playstation 2, this is what happened:
This is not the only game it does this with! In fact, the thing won't even play DVDs anymore, either! Now, when I've talked (bitched) to other people about the problems I've been having with my PS2, most of them say the same thing... something along the lines of, "Well, what did you expect... the thing is getting old, it's got a lot of hard miles on it, etc., etc." Well, here's my response to that: I've had my PS2 for like 5 YEARS!! It's not that old! GUITAR HERO IS A BRAND NEW GAME!! Do you all buy new TVs and Refridgerators every 5 years!? I think a piece of new technology should last a while, don't you? Especially when it costs hundreds of dollars! To further illustrate my point, I dug into my closet and pulled out my Commodore 64 and hooked it up:
The thing fired right up like a champ! And just to be sure, I loaded up a few games... here's me playing the totally sweet game Space Taxi:
Here's Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders:
And lastly, Ghostbusters:
As you can see, all three games I tried worked perfectly, and on the first try even! The Commodore 64 was released in 1982, and these games were all released during the 1980s! My PS2 is 5 years old, and I have to fuss with it for 20 minutes to get a brand new game to work! And Sony wants us all to pay 600 dollars for the Playstation 3? Nice try, jerks! I'll just stick to Space Taxi, thanks! And hacky sack.

Drawing With a Mouse is Hard

2006-07-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Haven't had the time to draw a new comic yet this week. Instead, I tried practicing something that I've never really practiced... COLOR. I took one of the panels from the Zelda Comic I did the other day and went at it with Photoshop... it took me like an hour and a half to do this! Maybe there was an easier way to do it than how I did it? Or maybe it's just something you get quicker at with practice? Either way, here it is! I'm going to start doing more colors, maybe even some full color comics as I get better at it! Let me know what you think, and PLEASE if anyone knows any Photoshop tricks or can give me some advice, I'd love to hear it!
Here's another one I found kicking around on my hard drive... I actually did this one a couple years ago for some art class I took at my local community college. People in that class blatantly copied things I did... that always made me kind of upset. Anyways, the assignment was to design a label for a drink, and this was mine... 'Extreme!! Sugar Splash!"

Those fruits are frigging awesome, I'm going to give them their own comic... like a fruit version of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Wait... wasn't I just saying I hated when people copied my stuff? Scratch that idea then. Let me know what you think! Thanks!

The Wind Waker

2006-07-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Before I get started, I've got to plug this one again... if you haven't looked yet: http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=7748

Click this link to read a short article and a 16 page preview of my good buddy Matt's latest comic, Side-Scrollers! It's totally hilarious, and you should totally go CLICK HERE and pre-order it!

I know it's been a little while since my last update, but I assure you that I've been totally busy! I spent the last couple days trying to get ready for my interview (which happened today)... getting clothes, ironing, shining my shoes, tracking down all paperwork I needed, etc. At 9:30 at night the day before my interview, I suddenly realised that I was missing my High School Diploma, without which I could not get interviewed! Panic set in, but I fortunately was able to turn it up after only about 20 minutes of frantic searching. Anyways, the interview seemed to go allright... the people interviewing me were pretty hard to read, so I'm not sure what they thought of me. Now, I play the waiting game... I hope they don't take too long to get back to me. I've got to say, though... after all that preparation, the whole thing seemed kind of anti-climactic. Oh well.

Anyways, here's my latest comic! It took me FOREVER to ink, but I'm really pretty pleased with how it turned out! It was a lot of fun to try and draw in the Legend of Zelda style while still trying to make it my own. Let me know what you think!

How Brian Got Fired!

2006-07-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

Before I start blabbering about my latest comic, allow me to pitch something to you, my loyal readers (both of you)! Click this link: http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=7748 and read a short article, as well as a 16 page preview, of my good friend Matt's latest book, Side-Scrollers, coming out this fall! Also, it stars ME!! (Seriously). If you like what you see, CLICK HERE to pre-order it from Amazon, as I have!

Anyways, here's my latest comic. This is another one of those 'this actually happened to me' things. Read on, and prepare to be amazed by stupidity...
Now, I'm not actually FIRED... I still work at Target... but this conversation actually took place. It was actually a bit longer and involved some other crap, but the meat of it is that basically I don't come to work grinning and doing backflips, so I've been shuffled out of my position. I'm not even really DEMOTED... just moved to a different position. Which is going to involve not only a new schedule, but I'm also going to have to start CLOSING. Which sucks, because when you close at Target, you're usually right back in the next morning to open the store. Isn't there a law about that? All this fuss, and right when I'm trying to get out of there, too. Oh well.

Here's something else I drew the other day. Now, I don't normally do a lot of 'fan art' apart from the occasional Spider-Man, Bat Man, or Ninja Turtle; but come on, who DOESN'T draw the occasional Spider-Man, Bat Man, or Ninja Turtle? Anyway, I was watching Futurama, and I doodled this picture of the Planet Express Crew. I did them up in my own style (except for Bender, I wasn't going to mess with perfection there). Let me know what you think!

Hey, kids! Comics!

2006-07-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a few one-page comics I've drawn recently! Actually, I drew them a couple weeks (or months, maybe?) ago, and just got around to finishing inking them now. I hope you like them! As usual, please excuse the amateurish scanning / Photoshop work... I'm still trying to figure it out!
I wish I could have learned kung fu up in the mountains somewhere... oh well. It's a lot tougher to draw someone punching thru a stack of wooden boards than I thought it would be. Also hard to draw? Trees.
For this one, I tried to think of like the cheesiest porno dialogue I could come up with. I hope I succeeded. As for what Center did with the two girls in the fitting room? Use your imagination!
I'm pretty pleased with the joke on this one. I had a bitch of a time with the TV image in panel 2... originally, I was going to just draw Strawberry Shortcake on there. But then I forgot and didn't realise until it was allready scanned, so I had to bright idea to just Photoshop a picture of her in there. I'm sure there was probably an easier way to do it... I just cut and pasted a picture in there, and went at it with the Eraser tool to get it to look like it was on the TV screen. Well, I hope you enjoy, let me know what you think!

Practice with Inking

2006-06-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

I cranked out this short comic tonight. It didn't really come out so hot, but it was really good practice inking for me. Tell me what you think:
I did pass that test, by the way. My stomach started growling as soon as I got ready to do my first situp, and I was pretty worried that I wouldn't have the energy to get through it all. It had been cool and rainy all morning, but as soon as we went outside to run, the sun came out and it got HOT... hot and humid from all the wetness. I was sucking wind like you wouldn't believe, but I got through. And as soon as we were done running? It started raining again. Go figure. God, look at me in those drawings... I need a haircut.

Anyways, I don't practice with inks as much as I should. This is something I'm hoping to change. Since I've never had any real formal training, all I can do is just practice, practice, get hints from friends and peers, and improve. Take these drawings for example:
The one on the left I drew like 6 years ago. The one on the right is the same character, drawn in the last six months. I'd like to think there's some evolution there. Hopefully, we'll all be able to look at my action drawings and my inks in a few months and see some similar progress.

And now, for one tiny last bit of good news I got in the mail the other day:

Huzzah! I'm SAFE!!Thanks for looking, let me know what you all think!

Action! Satisfaction!

2006-06-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

I find that when I'm doodling, I always seem to draw my characters JUST STANDING THERE. In an attempt to rememdy this, I dedicated my lunchbreaks at work this week to practicing drawing some actiony kung-fu style poses. Here's what I came up with...
I have no idea how one would throw a kick like this, let alone connect with it. I'm still pretty pleased with how this came out, though... I really like the angle.
Makoto from Street Fighter 3 does a punch like this. Apparently, so does my good buddy Mike.
Yeah... this is a pretty generic 'flying ninja' kind of pose. Anyways, while I was digging thru some boxes in my mom's basement, I turned up a ton of old old sketchpads. In one of them, I found a few of these two-panel comics I did about two years ago. Here they are...

I seem to remember that I didn't finish this one because I didn't think my facial expression came out funny enough in the second panel. Anyways, the important thing about this comic is...

THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO ME!!

I was so upset that I had to take a nice long break and rethink my life. Not that it did much good, since I'm still working retail. Oh well, gotta pay the bills, right? Anyway, enjoy, leave me some comments, and thanks in advance!

Some more comics sketches

2006-06-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

Thanks everyone who's left me comments, they're always greatly appreciated!

Here's a couple more quick sketches I've cranked out recently. While I do like animation a lot, my first love is comics, so here's a couple panels I did. I actually did these a while ago when I was really into the game Dark Cloud 2... to draw the plant monster, I had to sit there with the game paused for quite some time. Let me know what you think of this... the panel layout, art, etc... I'd love to hear some comments. I never did finish this, so I guess it was just practice. The joke was something along the lines of, in a game like this, I just get OBSESSED with all the minigames and stuff. I just have to find all the hidden items, level up every weapon, kill every monster, that kind of thing. I spent like over 150 hours each on Makai Kingdom and Phantom Brave.
Speaking of Nippon Ichi games, this sketch was inspired by the 'lift' abililty in Disgaea. I think it could have come out a little better, but all in all I'm pretty pleased. I had an idea for a scene in a comic where they all lifted each other and tossed each other to get to... something. Didn't figure it out yet. Just thought it'd be a funny reference to the game. I guess the joke is that it's probably not that easy to lift a stack of people and throw them across the room.

I'd love to hear what anyone thinks, thanks a lot!

Ninja girls and Etch-a-Sketch

2006-06-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

Here's something I doodled tonight. Someone who's known me for a long time and remembers characters I was drawing in like, High School... or maybe during my illustrious career in the Coast Guard... might recognize these as revamped (female) versions of some older characters. I just may use them in the 'project' I mentioned in an earlier post... I had an idea for a trio of villians kindof like the girls you fight in the first Grandia. I don't really remember that game, except that it had really REALLY bad acting. And somehow, I remember the tune it plays when you fight those girls. The weird shadow on the top of the pic is because I don't use a spiral bound sketchpad, so the page folds back funny when I scan it. I understand you can use Photoshop to clean that up, but I can't figure out quite how to do that. Anyways... LOVE the 90s X-Force style 2-tone-stripe-running-down-the-side uniform.
I also found this hanging out on my computer, too... it's not a very clear photo... taken with a cell phone camera, I think. I drew it on Christmas on a mini Etch-a-Sketch I got as a gift. I just HAD to share this with the world, though... it's Jesus holding a birthday cake. I hope you love it.

A quick doodle

2006-06-11T14:14:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick little thing I doodled as part of brainstorming for the aforementioned project I have in the works. When I sit there in front of a blank page, I just get the worst writers block, so I cranked this out to try and get the creative juices flowing. Anyways, halfway thru inking (I was using a brush pen I just bought since it was quicker and easier than using an actual brush and dipping it over and over), the tip of my brush pen 'split' a little and started drawing double lines... bleah. So I tried to trim it down and resharpen it with a razor blade... all I succeeded in doing was lopping off the tip of it, making it even more dull. So the small details in panel two... yeah, that's why they're all mushy. Eh... I should just stick with a real brush and ink. Also, I didn't use a ruler or anything for the panel edges... like I said, just a quick doodle. Enjoy. I'll be posting more animation school stuff real soon.

Oh, and as for the coloring job I mentioned I was going to attempt in my last post? Yeah, as predicted, I butchered it. So... scroll down and just enjoy the black and white one again. Watercolors are hard! I need more practice!

A Short Break

2006-06-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

Allright, taking a break from the John K. animation school today, thought I'd post this... just a bit of artwork for a project I'm working on. I'm going to attempt to color this, so I thought I'd post the b&w version before I ruin it (don't have much practice with colors).

Stretch and Squash Dogs

2006-06-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

Here's some of these dogs... I REALLY struggled with this character.

This one looks a LITTLE better...

... and I think this one came out the best. I'm definately going to have to practice him some more, because even the best one I did looks pretty crummy.

Bears and Squirrels

2006-06-02T19:42:00.001-07:00

Okay, here's some more of the heads from Lesson One. I'm having some trouble using this website... guess I'm just not very Web Savvy. I'm also giving myself a crash course in Photoshop while doing this... it seems I'm spending more time in there getting these pictures ready to post than I am actually drawing. Is there an easy way to resize an image to overlap it over another one? I haven't figured that out yet. If anyone could give me some advice, that would be great.
I thought this one looked pretty good until I put them side by side... a little crooked and a little squat.

This one seems pretty close, but without being able to overlap them, it's tough to tell.
I thought these came out all right too.
Something about this bear, though... mine doesn't seem to 'pop' like the original... if anyone's checking these out, I'd love some comments...! Thanks

My First Post

2006-06-01T20:59:00.000-07:00

June 1st, 2006
Okay, I'm going to take part in John K.'s animation school. I originally learned to draw by copying from Sunday Comics, from Ed Emberly books, and from the book 'Draw 50 Famous Cartoons' by Lee J. Ames. Later, I graduated to Stan Lee and John Buscema's 'How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way', all of which showed similar techniques to what is shown in the Preston Blair book. Anyways, it's been years since I've practiced these basic techniques, so I'm looking at it this way: I'm going to try and forget everything I know and relearn all this stuff from scratch. Here's some of my first attempts at lesson one, let me know what you think.Obviously, the one on the top left is mine, the one on the top right is Preston's, and the bottom is how it looks when I lay them on top of each other... looks like I need some work.

Here's a couple of the other angles I tried, too. Like I said, first attempt, I'll be posting more soon. Comments would be greatly appreciated...!!